ReportWire

Tag: hearing

  • Bondi clashes with Democrats over Epstein, political retribution claims

    WASHINGTON — U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi repeatedly sparred with lawmakers on Wednesday as she was pressed over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and faced demands for greater transparency in the high-profile case.

    Bondi accused Democrats and at least one Republican on the House Judiciary Committee of engaging in “theatrics” as she fielded questions about redaction errors made by the Justice Department when it released millions of files related to the Epstein case last month.

    The attorney general at one point acknowledged that mistakes had been made as the Justice Department tried to comply with a federal law that required it to review, redact and publicize millions of files within a 30-day period. Given the tremendous task at hand, she said the “error rate was very low” and that fixes were made when issues were encountered.

    Her testimony on the Epstein files, however, was mostly punctuated by dramatic clashes with lawmakers — exchanges that occurred as eight Epstein survivors attended the hearing.

    In one instance, Bondi refused to apologize to Epstein victims in the room, saying she would not “get into the gutter” with partisan requests from Democrats.

    In another exchange, Bondi declined to say how many perpetrators tied to the Epstein case are being investigated by the Justice Department. And at one point, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said the Trump administration was engaging in a “cover-up,” prompting Bondi to tell him that he was suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”

    The episodes underscore the extent to which the Epstein saga has roiled members of Congress. It has long been a political cudgel for Democrats, but after millions of files were released last month, offering the most detail yet of Epstein’s crimes, Republicans once unwilling to criticize Trump administration officials are growing more testy, as was put on full display during Wednesday’s hearing.

    Among the details uncovered in the files is information that showed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had closer ties to Epstein than he had initially led on.

    Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) asked Bondi if federal prosecutors have talked to Lutnick about Epstein. Bondi said only that he has “addressed those ties himself.”

    Lutnick said at a congressional hearing Tuesday that he visited Epstein’s island, an admission that is at odds with previous statements in which he said he had cut off contact with the disgraced financier after initially meeting him in 2005.

    “I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick told a Senate panel about a trip he took to the island in 2012.

    As Balint peppered Bondi about senior administration officials’ ties to Epstein, the back-and-forth between them got increasingly heated as Bondi declined to answer her questions.

    “This is not a game, secretary,” Balint told Bondi.

    “I’m attorney general,” Bondi responded.

    “My apologies,” Balint said. “I couldn’t tell.”

    In another testy exchange, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) pressed Bondi on whether the Justice Department has evidence tying President Trump to the sex-trafficking crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.

    Bondi dismissed the line of questioning as politically motivated and said there was “no evidence” Trump committed a crime.

    Lieu then accused her of misleading Congress, citing a witness statement to the FBI alleging that Trump attended Epstein gatherings with underage girls and describing secondhand claims from a limo driver who claimed that Trump sexually assaulted an underage girl who committed suicide shortly after.

    He demanded Bondi’s resignation for failing to interview the witness or hold co-conspirators to account. Other Democrats have floated the possibility of impeaching Bondi over the handling of the Epstein files.

    Beyond the Epstein files, Democrats raised broad concerns about the Justice Department increasingly investigating and prosecuting the president’s political foes.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Bondi has turned the agency into “Trump’s instrument of revenge.”

    “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza and you deliver every time,” Raskin said.

    As an example, Raskin pointed to the Justice Department’s failed attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers who urged service members to not comply with unlawful orders in a video posted in November.

    “You tried to get a grand jury to indict six members of Congress who are veterans of our armed forces on charges of seditious conspiracy, simply for exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” he said.

    During the hearing, Democrats criticized the Justice Department’s prosecution of journalist Don Lemon, who was arrested by federal agents last month after he covered an anti-immigration enforcement protest at a Minnesota church.

    Bondi defended Lemon’s prosecution and called him a “blogger.”

    “They were gearing for a resistance,” Bondi testified. “They met in a parking lot and they caravanned to a church on a Sunday morning when people were worshipping.”

    The protest took place after federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.

    Six federal prosecutors resigned last month after Bondi directed them to investigate Good’s widow. Bondi later stated on Fox News that she “fired them all” for being part of the “resistance.” Lemon then hired one of those prosecutors, former U.S. Atty. Joe Thompson, to represent him in the case.

    Bondi also faced questions about a Justice Department memo that directed the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” by Jan. 30, and to establish a “cash reward system” that incentivizes individuals to report on their fellow Americans.

    Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) asked Bondi if the list of groups had been compiled yet.

    “I’m not going to answer it yes or no, but I will say, I know that antifa is part of that,” Bondi said.

    Asked by Scanlon if she would share such a list with Congress, Bondi said she was “not going to commit anything to you because you won’t let me answer questions.”

    Scanlon said she worried that if such a list exists, there is no way for individuals or groups included in it to dispute any charge of being domestic terrorists — and warned Bondi that this was a dangerous move by the federal government.

    “Americans have never tolerated political demagogues who use the government to punish people on an enemies list,” Scanlon said. “It brought down McCarthy, Nixon and it will bring down this administration as well.”

    Ana Ceballos, Gavin J. Quinton

    Source link

  • ICE deports Maryland father despite ‘do not remove’ orders

    Federal immigration authorities removed a Maryland father to El Salvador on Tuesday despite two court orders saying not to.During an emergency hearing Thursday at federal court in Baltimore, a federal judge examined what happened to Jose Serrano-Maldonado.Federal authorities admitted they made a mistake, conceding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement violated court orders filed in the system, even with a banner in Serrano-Maldonado’s file that said, “Do not remove.”But the feds couldn’t say why they did it anyway.The judge called this a very bad situation and demanded to know, in writing, exactly who took what steps, when and why.Serrano-Maldonado’s immigration attorney, Anna Alyssa Tijerina, is fighting for his immediate return to the United States, telling the judge that her client’s life is in danger.”He told me he is going to try and remain in his house as much as possible until this is resolved. He told me he wants to come back to the United States, even if it’s back to the detention center,” Tijerina told sister station WBAL-TV.Assistant U.S. Attorney Beatrice Thomas offered no comment outside the court when asked questions by WBAL. In court, Thomas told the judge that the government is working to fly Serrano-Maldonado back on “ICE Air” but that there’s a lot of red tape and it could take many days.The judge ordered status updates to be filed daily until Serrano-Maldonado is returned to the U.S. It’s unlikely that those daily status updates will be accessible publicly because the government said it plans to file the updates under preliminary seal.”I can’t imagine being in (the family’s) position of knowing, not knowing. At least, ‘There’s no new update today,’ is an update, right? They know something, they know that nothing was done today, but something will be done tomorrow,” Tijerina told WBAL. “For the sake of my client, for the sake of my client’s life in El Salvador, and for the sake of his family, I hope that this gets resolved quickly.”Thursday’s hearing was the first of three immigration hearings for this sole judge in the single courtroom on just one day.

    Federal immigration authorities removed a Maryland father to El Salvador on Tuesday despite two court orders saying not to.

    During an emergency hearing Thursday at federal court in Baltimore, a federal judge examined what happened to Jose Serrano-Maldonado.

    Federal authorities admitted they made a mistake, conceding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement violated court orders filed in the system, even with a banner in Serrano-Maldonado’s file that said, “Do not remove.”

    But the feds couldn’t say why they did it anyway.

    The judge called this a very bad situation and demanded to know, in writing, exactly who took what steps, when and why.

    Serrano-Maldonado’s immigration attorney, Anna Alyssa Tijerina, is fighting for his immediate return to the United States, telling the judge that her client’s life is in danger.

    “He told me he is going to try and remain in his house as much as possible until this is resolved. He told me he wants to come back to the United States, even if it’s back to the detention center,” Tijerina told sister station WBAL-TV.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Beatrice Thomas offered no comment outside the court when asked questions by WBAL. In court, Thomas told the judge that the government is working to fly Serrano-Maldonado back on “ICE Air” but that there’s a lot of red tape and it could take many days.

    The judge ordered status updates to be filed daily until Serrano-Maldonado is returned to the U.S. It’s unlikely that those daily status updates will be accessible publicly because the government said it plans to file the updates under preliminary seal.

    “I can’t imagine being in (the family’s) position of knowing, not knowing. At least, ‘There’s no new update today,’ is an update, right? They know something, they know that nothing was done today, but something will be done tomorrow,” Tijerina told WBAL. “For the sake of my client, for the sake of my client’s life in El Salvador, and for the sake of his family, I hope that this gets resolved quickly.”

    Thursday’s hearing was the first of three immigration hearings for this sole judge in the single courtroom on just one day.

    Source link

  • Timothy Busfield’s detention hearing to address sexual misconduct charges in New Mexico

    COVERAGE YOU CAN COUNT ON KOAT. ACTION SEVEN NEWS AT SIX STARTS RIGHT NOW. IT’S GOING TO BE A REALLY INTERESTING ARGUMENT BEFORE THIS JUDGE FROM BOTH SIDES, ACTOR AND DIRECTOR TIMOTHY BUSFIELD, SCHEDULED FOR COURT TOMORROW. HE’S FACING SEXUAL CHARGES REPORTEDLY INVOLVING TWO CHILD ACTORS WHILE FILMING A TV SHOW IN NEW MEXICO. COREY HOWARD JOINS US LIVE FROM DISTRICT COURT. DOCUMENTS FROM BUSFIELD SUPPORTERS. WELL, TONIGHT, TIMOTHY BUSFIELD REMAINS BEHIND BARS, BUT HE COULD BE A FREE AGAIN TOMORROW, DEPENDING ON THE JUDGE’S RULING. THEY’RE TRYING TO CONVINCE THE JUDGE. THE JUDGE CAN FEEL COMFORTABLE LETTING HIM OUT OF JAIL. OF COURSE, THE PROSECUTION WANTS TO KEEP HIM IN UNTIL HIS TRIAL SETTING, WHICH COULD BE A YEAR OR MORE. AND BOTH SIDES ARE SUBMITTING THEIR SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS. BUZZFEED’S DEFENSE TEAM SAYING THE HOLLYWOOD STAR PASSED A POLYGRAPH TEST AND HAS COLLECTED MORE THAN 70 LETTERS SUPPORTING HIM. ONE OF THE MORE EMOTIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN BY HIS WIFE, MELISSA GILBERT. THE FINAL PARAGRAPH OF THE LETTER ASKING THE JUDGE, PLEASE, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF MY SWEET HUSBAND AS HE IS MY PROTECTOR. I AM HIS, BUT I CANNOT PROTECT HIM NOW. AND I THINK THAT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, IS WHAT TRULY IS BREAKING MY HEART. I AM RELYING ON YOU TO PROTECT THEM. FOR ME. KOAT LEGAL EXPERT JOHN DAY, EXPLAINING HOW THIS MIGHT AFFECT THE JUDGE’S DECISION. IT’S GOING TO BE UP TO THE JUDGE TO SAY YES. BUSPAR IS NOT A FLIGHT RISK. HE’S NOT A DANGER TO THE COMMUNITY. HE’S NOT GOING TO COMMIT CRIMES SO I CAN LET HIM OUT OF CUSTODY. PROSECUTORS ARE READY TO REFUTE THOSE CLAIMS, ARGUING BUZZFEED SHOULD REMAIN BEHIND BARS. THEIR SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS SAY THE DEFENDANT POSES A SERIOUS AND ONGOING DANGER, NOT ONLY TO THE NAMED VICTIMS, BUT ANY CHILD IN HIS PROXIMITY. THEY ALSO TALKED ABOUT THE TIMELINESS OF BUZZFEED’S VOLUNTARY SURRENDER, SAYING DESPITE KNOWING ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON THAT A WARRANT HAD BEEN ISSUED FOR HIS ARREST, THE DEFENDANT DID NOT IMMEDIATELY SURRENDER TO LAW ENFORCEMENT. INSTEAD, HE DELAYED FOR APPROXIMATELY FIVE DAYS TRAVELING FROM NEW YORK TO NEW MEXICO TO AVOID THE EXTRADITION PROCESS. NOW, BUZZFEED DETENTION HEARING IS SCHEDULED FOR 2 P.M. TOMORROW, AND KOAT WILL BE STREAMING IT LIVE, REPORTING IN DOWNTOWN ALBUQUERQUE. COREY HOWARD KOAT ACTION SEVEN NEWS. BUZZFEED ATTORNEYS HAVE CALLED 13 WITNESSES TO SPEAK AT THE

    Timothy Busfield’s detention hearing preview, what’s expected

    Updated: 3:23 PM PST Jan 20, 2026

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Actor and director Timothy Busfield is facing a detention hearing in New Mexico to determine whether he will remain in custody or be released until his trial on charges of sexual misconduct involving two child actors.Video above: What was expected from Timothy Busfield’s detention hearingSince his arrest, Busfield has received substantial support, with more than 70 people advocating for his release. Among the supporters is his wife, Melissa Gilbert, who wrote an emotional letter to the judge, saying, “Please, please, take care of my sweet husband. As he is my protector, I am his, but I cannot protect him now and I think that, more than anything else, is what is truly breaking my heart. I am relying on you to protect him for me.”Prosecutors argue that Busfield poses a “serious and ongoing danger not only to the named victims, but any child in his proximity.” They also criticized the timing of his voluntary surrender, stating, “Despite knowing on Friday afternoon that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, the Defendant did not immediately surrender to law enforcement. Instead, he delayed for approximately five days, traveling from New York to New Mexico to avoid the extradition process.”Busfield’s defense team presented evidence of his character and community support, noting that he passed a polygraph test. They argued, “The overwhelming evidence of character and community support, and the absence of any reliable proof of dangerousness – the State cannot meet its burden of clear and convincing evidence that no conditions of release will reasonably protect the community. The Constitution requires release under appropriate conditions.”The hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, will feature 13 witnesses called by Busfield’s attorneys, including five who worked on “The Cleaning Lady,” filmed in Albuquerque.

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —

    Actor and director Timothy Busfield is facing a detention hearing in New Mexico to determine whether he will remain in custody or be released until his trial on charges of sexual misconduct involving two child actors.

    Video above: What was expected from Timothy Busfield’s detention hearing

    Since his arrest, Busfield has received substantial support, with more than 70 people advocating for his release. Among the supporters is his wife, Melissa Gilbert, who wrote an emotional letter to the judge, saying, “Please, please, take care of my sweet husband. As he is my protector, I am his, but I cannot protect him now and I think that, more than anything else, is what is truly breaking my heart. I am relying on you to protect him for me.”

    Prosecutors argue that Busfield poses a “serious and ongoing danger not only to the named victims, but any child in his proximity.” They also criticized the timing of his voluntary surrender, stating, “Despite knowing on Friday afternoon that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, the Defendant did not immediately surrender to law enforcement. Instead, he delayed for approximately five days, traveling from New York to New Mexico to avoid the extradition process.”

    Busfield’s defense team presented evidence of his character and community support, noting that he passed a polygraph test. They argued, “The overwhelming evidence of character and community support, and the absence of any reliable proof of dangerousness – the State cannot meet its burden of clear and convincing evidence that no conditions of release will reasonably protect the community. The Constitution requires release under appropriate conditions.”

    The hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, will feature 13 witnesses called by Busfield’s attorneys, including five who worked on “The Cleaning Lady,” filmed in Albuquerque.

    Source link

  • Some Gifted Dogs Can Learn New Toy Names By Eavesdropping On Owners – KXL

    Acquired Through MGN Online on 01/01/2025

    NEW YORK (AP) — A new study finds that some gifted dogs can learn the names of new toys by eavesdropping.

    It’s a skill that has only been observed in a few animals, like parrots and apes.

    Ten gifted dogs watched their owners hold a new toy and talk to another person about it.

    Then the pups were told to go to another room and retrieve that specific toy from a pile.

    Seven out of 10 succeeded. Only a select group of pooches is capable of this, and scientists aren’t yet sure what’s behind it.

    The new research was published Thursday in the journal Science.

    More about:

    Grant McHill

    Source link

  • Supreme Court may restrict asylum claims from those arriving at the southern border

    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a Trump administration appeal that argues migrants have no right to seek asylum at the southern border.

    Rather, the government says border agents may block asylum seekers from stepping onto U.S. soil and turn away their claims without a hearing.

    The new case seeks to clarify the immigration laws and resolve an issue that has divided past administrations and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Under federal law, migrants who faces persecution in their home countries may apply for asylum and receive a screening hearing if they are “physically present in the United States” or if such a person “arrives in the United States.”

    Since 2016, however, the Obama, Biden and Trump administrations responded to surges at the border by adopting temporary rules which required migrants to wait on the Mexican side before they could apply for asylum.

    But in May, a divided 9th Circuit Court ruled those restrictions were illegal if they prevented migrants from applying for asylum.

    “To ‘arrive’ means ‘to reach a destination,’” wrote Judge Michelle Friedland, citing a dictionary definition. “A person who presents herself to an official at the border has ‘arrived.’”

    She said this interpretation “does not radically expand the right to asylum.” By contrast, the “government’s reading would reflect a radical reconstruction of the right to apply for asylum because it would give the executive branch vast discretion to prevent people from applying by blocking them at the border.”

    “We therefore conclude that a non-citizen stopped by U.S. officials at the border is eligible to apply for asylum,” she wrote.

    The 2-1 decision upheld a federal judge in San Diego who ruled for migrants who had filed a class-action suit and said they were wrongly denied an asylum hearing.

    But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to review and reverse the appellate ruling, noting 15 judges of the 9th Circuit joined dissents that called the decision “radical” and “clearly wrong.”

    In football, a “running back does not ‘arrive in’ the end zone when he is stopped at the one-yard line,” Sauer wrote.

    He said federal immigration law “does not grant aliens throughout the world a right to enter the United States so that they can seek asylum.” From abroad, they may “seek admission as refugees,” he said, but the government may enforce its laws by “blocking illegal immigrants from stepping on U.S. soil.”

    Immigrants rights lawyers advised the court to turn away the appeal because the government is no longer using the “metering” system that required migrants to wait for a hearing.

    Since June 2024, they said, the government has restricted inspections and processing of these noncitizens under a different provision of law that authorizes the president to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of alien” if he believes they would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

    The government also routinely sends back migrants who illegally cross the border.

    But the solicitor general said the asylum provision should be clarified.

    The justices voted to hear the case of Noem vs. Al Otro Lado early next year and decide “whether an alien who is stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border ‘arrives in the United States’ within the meaning” of federal immigration law.

    David G. Savage

    Source link

  • Prosecutors drop murder charge against woman accused in deadly Orange County road-rage shooting

    Video above: Previous coverageA murder charge has been dropped against a woman who was accused of killing a man during a road rage shooting in Orange County. Tina Allgeo appeared in court on Thursday morning for a hearing about a motion to dismiss the charges against her. Allgeo was facing charges of second-degree murder and aggravated battery.Allgeo pleaded no contest to aggravated battery, and the murder charge against her was dropped.BackgroundThe victim, Mihail Tsvetkov, and Allgeo encountered each other in front of an Olive Garden restaurant. She got out of her car and confronted him about driving too close to her.Allgeo says he then bumped her car. The report says she exited her car a second time, holding her phone to call the police. Police said Tsvetkov drove away.In a written statement, Allgeo told police she accidentally struck his car while trying to get his tag number.The report says Tsvetkov then got out of his car, approached Allgeo, opened the car door, and a struggle ensued.According to the report, she said she shot him once because she feared for her life as he punched her multiple times.Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has criticized the case, saying it’s “stand your ground.”Witnesses at the scene described the confrontation as brief and unprovoked. About the victim The victim was identified as Mihail Tsvetkov. The victim’s sister said he was planning to relocate in 12 days to be with his family before he was killed.

    ORLANDO, Fla. —

    Video above: Previous coverage

    A murder charge has been dropped against a woman who was accused of killing a man during a road rage shooting in Orange County.

    Tina Allgeo appeared in court on Thursday morning for a hearing about a motion to dismiss the charges against her.

    Allgeo was facing charges of second-degree murder and aggravated battery.

    Allgeo pleaded no contest to aggravated battery, and the murder charge against her was dropped.

    Background

    The victim, Mihail Tsvetkov, and Allgeo encountered each other in front of an Olive Garden restaurant. She got out of her car and confronted him about driving too close to her.

    Allgeo says he then bumped her car. The report says she exited her car a second time, holding her phone to call the police. Police said Tsvetkov drove away.

    In a written statement, Allgeo told police she accidentally struck his car while trying to get his tag number.

    The report says Tsvetkov then got out of his car, approached Allgeo, opened the car door, and a struggle ensued.

    According to the report, she said she shot him once because she feared for her life as he punched her multiple times.

    Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has criticized the case, saying it’s “stand your ground.”

    Witnesses at the scene described the confrontation as brief and unprovoked.

    About the victim

    The victim was identified as Mihail Tsvetkov.

    The victim’s sister said he was planning to relocate in 12 days to be with his family before he was killed.

    Source link

  • California judge halts Trump federal job cuts amid government shutdown

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Wednesday from firing thousands of government workers based on the ongoing federal shutdown, granting a request from employee unions in California.

    U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the temporary restraining order after concluding that the unions “will demonstrate ultimately that what’s being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority and is arbitrary and capricious.”

    Illston slammed the Trump administration for failing to provide her with clear information about what cuts are actually occurring, for repeatedly changing its description and estimates of job cuts in filings before the court, and for failing — including during Wednesday’s hearing in San Francisco — to articulate an argument for why such cuts are not in violation of federal law.

    “The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore,” Illston said — which she said was not the case.

    She said the government justified providing inaccurate figures for the number of jobs being eliminated under its “reduction in force” orders by calling it a “fluid situation” — which she did not find convincing.

    “What it is is a situation where things are being done before they are being thought through. It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs,” she said. “And it has a human cost, which is really why we’re here today. It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

    Illston also ran through a string of recent comments made by President Trump and other members of his administration about the firings and their intentionally targeting programs and agencies supported by Democrats, saying, “By all appearances, they’re politically motivated.”

    The Trump administration has acknowledged dismissing about 4,000 workers under the orders, while Trump and other officials have signaled that more would come Friday.

    Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Wednesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that the number of jobs cut could “probably end up being north of 10,000,” as the administration wants to be “very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding,” and the shutdown provided that opportunity.

    Attorneys for the unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees, said that the figures were unreliable and that they feared additional reduction in force orders resulting in more layoffs, as promised by administration officials, if the court did not step in and block such actions.

    Illston, an appointee of President Clinton, did just that.

    She barred the Trump administration and its various agencies “from taking any action to issue any reduction in force notices to federal employees in any program, project or activity” involving union members “during or because of the federal shutdown.”

    She also barred the administration from “taking any further action to administer or implement” existing reduction notices involving union members.

    Illston demanded that the administration provide within two days a full accounting of all existing or “imminent” reduction in force orders that would be blocked by her order, as well as the specific number of federal jobs affected.

    Elizabeth Hedges, an attorney for the Trump administration, had argued during the hearing that the order should not be granted for several procedural reasons — including that the alleged harm to federal employees from loss of employment or benefits was not “irreparable” and could be addressed through other avenues, including civil litigation.

    Additionally, she argued that federal employment claims should be adjudicated administratively, not in district court; and that the reduction in force orders included 60-day notice periods, meaning the layoffs were not immediate and therefore the challenge to them was not yet “ripe” legally.

    However, Hedges would not discuss the case on its actual merits — which is to say, whether the cuts were actually legal or not, which did not seem to sit well with Illston.

    “You don’t have a position on whether it’s OK that they do what they’re doing?” Illston asked.

    “I am not prepared to discuss that today, your honor,” Hedges said.

    “Well — but it’s happening. This hatchet is falling on the heads of employees all across the nation, and you’re not even prepared to address whether that’s legal, even though that’s what this motion challenges?” Illston said.

    “That’s right,” Hedges said — stressing again that there were “threshold” arguments for why the case shouldn’t even be allowed to continue to the merits stage.

    Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the unions, suggested the government’s positions were indefensible and directly in conflict with public statements by the administration — including remarks by Trump on Tuesday that more cuts are coming Friday.

    “How do we know this? Because OMB and the president relentlessly are telling us, and other members of the administration,” Leonard said.

    Leonard said the harm from the administration’s actions is obvious and laid out in the union’s filings — showing how employees have at times been left in the dark as to their employment status because they don’t have access to work communication channels during the shutdown, or how others have been called in to “work without pay to fire their fellow employees” — only to then be fired themselves.

    “There are multiple types of harm that are caused exactly right now — emotional trauma. That’s not my word, your honor, that is the word of OMB Director Vought. Let’s cause ‘trauma’ to the federal workforce,” Leonard said. “And that’s exactly what they are doing. Trauma. The emotional distress of being told you are being fired after an already exceptionally difficult year for federal employees.”

    Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, which is co-counsel for the unions, praised Illston’s decision in a statement after the hearing.

    “The statements today by the court make clear that the President’s targeting of federal workers — a move straight out of Project 2025’s playbook — is unlawful,” Perryman said. “Our civil servants do the work of the people, and playing games with their livelihoods is cruel and unlawful and a threat to everyone in our nation.”

    Illston asked the two parties to confer on the best date, probably later this month, for a fuller hearing on whether she should issue a more lasting preliminary injunction in the case.

    “It would be wonderful to know what the government’s position is on the merits of this case — and my breath is bated until we find that,” Illston said.

    After the hearing, during a White House news conference, Trump said his administration was paying federal employees whom “we want paid” while Vought uses the shutdown to dismiss employees perceived as supporting Democratic initiatives.

    “Russell Vought is really terminating tremendous numbers of Democrat projects — not only jobs,” Trump said.

    Kevin Rector

    Source link

  • Suspect in Charlie Kirk assassination case faces court hearing

    The 22-year-old man charged with killing Charlie Kirk will have a court hearing Monday where he and his newly appointed legal counsel will decide whether they want a preliminary hearing where the judge will determine if there is enough evidence against him to go forward with a trial.Prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder and plan to seek the death penalty. Video above: Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer charged with aggravated murder as FBI investigates possible accomplicesThe Utah state court system gives people accused of crimes an option to waive their legal right to a preliminary hearing and instead schedule an arraignment where they can enter a plea.Kathryn Nester, the lead attorney appointed to represent Robinson, declined to comment on the case ahead of Monday’s hearing. Prosecutors at the Utah County Attorney’s Office did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.The hearing in Provo is open to the public, just a few miles from the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, where many students are still processing trauma from the Sept. 10 shooting and the day-and-a-half search for the suspect. Authorities arrested Robinson when he showed up with his parents at his hometown sheriff’s office in southwest Utah, more than a three-hour drive from the site of the shooting, to turn himself in. Prosecutors have since revealed incriminating text messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing.A note that Robinson had left for his romantic partner before the shooting said he had the opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices, “and I’m going to take it,” Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray told reporters before the first hearing. Gray also said that Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred.”The assassination of Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who worked to steer young voters toward conservatism, has galvanized Republicans who have vowed to carry on Kirk’s mission of moving American politics further to the right.Video below: Tyler Robinson makes first court appearance in Charlie Kirk caseTrump has declared Kirk a “martyr” for freedom and threatened to crack down on what he called the “radical left.”Workers across the country have been punished or fired for speaking out about Kirk after his death, including teachers, public and private employees and media personalities — most notably Jimmy Kimmel, who had his late-night show suspended then quickly reinstated by ABC.Kirk’s political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through his podcast, social media and campus events. Many prominent Republicans are filling in at the upcoming campus events Kirk was meant to attend, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee at Utah State University on Tuesday.

    PROVO, Utah —

    The 22-year-old man charged with killing Charlie Kirk will have a court hearing Monday where he and his newly appointed legal counsel will decide whether they want a preliminary hearing where the judge will determine if there is enough evidence against him to go forward with a trial.

    Prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder and plan to seek the death penalty.

    Video above: Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer charged with aggravated murder as FBI investigates possible accomplices

    The Utah state court system gives people accused of crimes an option to waive their legal right to a preliminary hearing and instead schedule an arraignment where they can enter a plea.

    Kathryn Nester, the lead attorney appointed to represent Robinson, declined to comment on the case ahead of Monday’s hearing. Prosecutors at the Utah County Attorney’s Office did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.

    The hearing in Provo is open to the public, just a few miles from the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, where many students are still processing trauma from the Sept. 10 shooting and the day-and-a-half search for the suspect.

    Authorities arrested Robinson when he showed up with his parents at his hometown sheriff’s office in southwest Utah, more than a three-hour drive from the site of the shooting, to turn himself in. Prosecutors have since revealed incriminating text messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing.

    A note that Robinson had left for his romantic partner before the shooting said he had the opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices, “and I’m going to take it,” Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray told reporters before the first hearing. Gray also said that Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred.”

    The assassination of Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who worked to steer young voters toward conservatism, has galvanized Republicans who have vowed to carry on Kirk’s mission of moving American politics further to the right.

    Video below: Tyler Robinson makes first court appearance in Charlie Kirk case

    Trump has declared Kirk a “martyr” for freedom and threatened to crack down on what he called the “radical left.”

    Workers across the country have been punished or fired for speaking out about Kirk after his death, including teachers, public and private employees and media personalities — most notably Jimmy Kimmel, who had his late-night show suspended then quickly reinstated by ABC.

    Kirk’s political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through his podcast, social media and campus events. Many prominent Republicans are filling in at the upcoming campus events Kirk was meant to attend, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee at Utah State University on Tuesday.

    Source link

  • Three teens murdered a girl in a ‘satanic ritual.’ Why is only one still in prison?

    It was a July evening when Elyse Pahler, 15, sneaked out her bedroom in the Central Coast town of Arroyo Grande, planning to get into some mischief. A boy from school had gotten her number from a friend and invited her to smoke weed in the woods near her family’s home.

    The boy was Jacob Delashmutt, also 15, and he brought along two friends. Delashmutt and his schoolmates Royce Casey, 16, and Joseph Fiorella, 14, all shared a passion for death metal, and they formed their own band called Hatred.

    One of their favorite groups was Slayer, a popular metal act that featured a song with lyrics about worshiping Satan and sacrificing a blonde, blue-eyed virgin.

    Pahler fit that description as she walked to join the three metal heads that night in 1995. Three decades later, Delashmutt described what happened next to a state parole board.

    Delashmutt, now 45, said that once they had smoked marijuana, he and the two other boys attacked Pahler when she was distracted by the sound of a passing car. He wrapped his belt around her neck, strangling her while Fiorella stabbed her and Casey held down her arms. Then they each took turns stabbing her with a 12-inch knife, according to his testimony, first in the neck then in the back and shoulders.

    Casey told state parole officials this year that Pahler begged for her mother and Jesus before he stomped on the back of her neck. They had planned to violate her remains, Delashmutt testified to the parole board, but instead hid her body in the woods and fled the scene. She wasn’t found until eight months later, when Casey confessed to his pastor.

    Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt and Joseph Fiorella pictured as teens after their arrest in March 1996. They were convicted of murdering Elyse Pahler, a teenage peer, in a satanic ritual. Casey and Delashmutt were released on parole recently, 30 years after the murder in Arroyo Grande, Calif.

    (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California)

    Today, two of the killers — including the admitted ringleader — are walking free after receiving parole. But the youngest of the group, Fiorella, remains behind bars despite claims that he is intellectually disabled and that his case was mishandled.

    The releases of Casey and Delashmutt this year have come amid a surge of high-profile murder cases from the 1990s entering the parole process. Erik and Lyle Menendez, the Beverly Hills brothers convicted of killing their parents in 1989 as teens, were denied parole this month after a months-long resentencing effort.

    Pahler’s murder occurred while the Menendez brothers were on trial, and the grisly killing of a young, white girl provoked a similar level of media frenzy. Prosecutors alleged the death-metal-obsessed teens had plotted to commit the murder as part of a “Satanic ritual.”

    Pahler’s family has fought against letting out any of the men over the past decade, with her father, David, often bringing a picture of his daughter to show the parole board.

    David Pahler told the board at a 2023 hearing that he believed Casey still lacked remorse, reading from a transcript of Casey’s journal taken when he was arrested in which the teen wrote about believing Satan had “taken my soul and replaced it with a new one to carry out his work on earth.”

    “If you give up your soul to Satan, how do you get it back? How do you get it back? I — I don’t have an answer for that,” Pahler said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

    Casey and Delashmutt pleaded no contest to first-degree murder in 1997, each receiving 25 years to life in prison. Fiorella, also charged with being armed with a deadly weapon, got 26 years to life. Since they became eligible for parole, their paths through the system have led to vastly divergent outcomes.

    Casey was denied twice by the board, then approved in 2021 and 2023, only to have Gov. Gavin Newsom reverse the decision. Newsom argued Casey needed to do more work to ensure he would make healthy relationships outside prison and learn the “internal processes” that led him to kill Pahler.

    Delashmutt was also denied twice by the parole board in 2017 and 2022 and once by the governor’s reversal in 2023. The rejections often referenced his tendency to shirk responsibility onto his co-defendants for his role in the murder.

    Although Delashmutt was the one who called Pahler and invited her into the woods, at the time of his arrest he blamed the other two for orchestrating the murder and recruiting him to carry it out.

    This year, however, Delashmutt told the parole board he was the “ringleader” of the group.

    “I know that I am the most responsible for this crime. I had every opportunity to put a stop to it, and I didn’t. I was involved in the planning from the beginning and I made this crime happen. Elyse Pahler was safe in her home that night when she received a phone call from me,” Delashmutt said.

    The teens were influenced by death metal music — specifically by Slayer — to channel their anger at the world into physical violence, Casey told the parole board.

    “That music, especially Slayer, was all about suicide, murder, sacrifice. So, I started learning a specific way to express those things,” he said.

    Pahler’s family unsuccessfully sued Slayer and its record company for its lyrics in 2001, claiming they incited her murder, but lost on 1st Amendment grounds.

    Casey was released from Valley State Prison in early August to transitional housing in Los Angeles County, his lawyer told The Times. “Our legal system is not based on emotion,” his lawyer and prison advocate Charles Carbone said.

    Despite what was “one of the most notorious crimes committed in San Luis Obispo County,” Carbone said, there has been an “enormous consensus” over the last few years among prison psychologists, the full parole board and the governor that Casey should go home.

    Delashmutt, who was released in late July, didn’t believe he had a future when he was a teen, said parole hearing lawyer Patrick Sparks.

    “His background was about a lot of poor decisions,” he said. “He started to change his life, and it gave him hope for the future again.”

    Both apologized.

    “I want to acknowledge all of the pain and the trauma that I’ve caused,” Delashmutt said. “It is impossible for me to understand the magnitude of the crime, the impact that it’s had on the Pahler family.”

    Casey said he remembered how David Pahler often brought a picture of his daughter to the hearing.

    “Something that I remember hearing over time when Elyse’s dad has come, is that she has a face. And I try to remember every day, whatever decision I’m making or whatever I do, that the ongoing impact of what I did is present all the time.”

    Fiorella, unlike the other two men, has yet to participate openly in a parole hearing, according to hearing transcripts from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He waived attendance for a 2019 hearing, and, according to the transcripts, was advised by his lawyer, Dennis Cusick, not to speak or answer questions in his most recent hearing in 2023.

    Cusick declined to comment on whether his client would attend or participate in an upcoming parole hearing scheduled for next year.

    Court filings show Fiorella has long looked to overturn his conviction, arguing that a court-appointed defense attorney failed to give his due diligence prior to accepting the plea deal.

    A complaint filed in the Central District of California in November 2023 argues that Fiorella’s first trial lawyer, David Hurst, waived a fitness hearing after receiving a neuropsychologist’s report that Fiorella was developmentally disabled and had an IQ score of 68, indicating a mild intellectual disability.

    Hurst said in a 2020 deposition that he “felt that we would lose the fitness hearing and it would be a waste of time,” despite knowing about the report and other circumstances of Fiorella’s life, the complaint said.

    Hurst was terminally ill at the time of his deposition, the complaint notes, and died by the end of the year before an evidentiary hearing.

    Fiorella scored at just above an eighth-grade level on a basic education test, according to a transcript of his 2023 parole hearing. He earned a GED more than two decades prior, in 2002, but the parole board noted a report from a doctor who alleged he could not pass it and paid someone to take it for him.

    Cusick argued to the parole board that Fiorella is still developmentally disabled and “is not the kind of person to take on a leadership role in anything.” The habeas corpus complaint repeatedly characterized a teenage Fiorella as a shy, quiet child who was teased by peers for being “slow.” It also challenged the idea that he orchestrated the murder, instead placing blame on Delashmutt.

    Fiorella’s complaint has gone through several levels of state and federal courts, with most agreeing that the challenge to his conviction was years past the statute of limitations. Courts also said it was questionable whether the forgone fitness hearing, as his trial lawyer suggested, would have resulted in any action.

    The complaint was dismissed and then appealed in March to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That case is awaiting an opening brief due in November.

    Fiorella’s federal public defender, Raj Shah, did not respond to requests for comment.

    In his 2023 hearing, a representative of the San Luis Obispo County district attorney’s office, Lisa Dunn, opposed Fiorella’s release, arguing he had not done the work necessary to prove he was ready for parole.

    “Mr. Fiorella, frankly, is a dangerous individual,” Dunn said. “He’s been dangerous since he was 15, and there’s no evidence to support a finding that he’s less dangerous now.”

    Sandra McDonald

    Source link

  • Lyle Menendez denied parole, will remain in prison along with younger brother Erik

    SACRAMENTO — A day after his younger brother was denied release, Lyle Menendez also saw California parole officials reject his bid for freedom, ruling he will remain behind bars for now for the 1989 shotgun murders of his parents.

    The parole board grilled Menendez, 57, over his efforts to get witnesses to lie during his trials, the lavish shopping sprees he and his brother Erik, 54, took after their parents’ killings, and whether he felt relief after the murders.

    “I felt this shameful period of those six months of having to lie to relatives who were grieving,” Menendez told the board. “I felt the need to suffer. That it was no relief.”

    As the elder brother, Menendez said he at times felt like the protector of Erik, but that he soon realized the murders were not the right way out of sexual abuse they were allegedly suffering at the hands of their parents.

    “I sort of started to feel like I had not rescued my brother,” he said. “I destroyed his life. I’d rescued nobody.”

    The closely watched hearing for Lyle Menendez, one of the most well-known inmates currently in the state’s prison system, was thrown into disarray Friday afternoon after audio of his brother’s parole hearing on Thursday was publicly released.

    The audio, published by ABC 7, sparked anger and frustration from the brothers’ relatives and their attorney, who accused the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of leaking the audio and tainting Lyle’s hearing.

    A CDCR spokesperson confirmed the audio was “erroneously” issued in response to a records request, but did not elaborate or immediately respond to additional questions from The Times.

    “I have protected myself, I have stayed out of this, I have not had a relationship with two human beings because I was afraid, and I came here today and I came here yesterday and I trusted that this would only be released in a transcript,” said Tiffani Lucero-Pastor, a relative of the brothers. “You’ve misled the family.”

    Heidi Rummel, Lyle Menendez’s parole attorney, also criticized CDCR, accusing the agency of turning the hearing into a “spectacle.”

    “I don’t think you can possibly understand the emotion of what this family is experiencing,” she said. “They have spent so much time trying to protect their privacy and dignity.”

    After the audio was published, Rummel said family members who planned to testify decided not to speak after all, and said she would be looking to seal the transcripts of Friday’s hearing.

    Parole Commissioner Julie Garland said regulations allowed for audio to be released under the California Public Records Act. Transcripts of parole hearings typically become public within 30 days of a grant or denial, under state law.

    During his first-ever appeal to the state parole board, Lyle Menendez was questioned over his credibility.

    Garland referred to Menendez’s appeal to get witnesses to lie, plans to escape, and lies to relatives about the killings as a “sophistication of the web of lies and manipulation you demonstrated.”

    Menendez said he had no plan at the time, there was just “a lot of flailing in what was happening.”

    “Even though you fooled your entire family about you being a murderer, and you recruited all these people to help you … you don’t think that’s being a good liar?” Garland asked.

    Menendez said the remorse he felt after the crimes perhaps helped create a “strong belief” he didn’t have anything to do with the killings.

    Dmitry Gorin, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, said the board’s decision denying parole was consistent with past decisions involving violent crimes.

    “Although this is a high-profile case, the parole board rejecting the release demonstrates that it seeks to keep violent offenders locked up because they still pose a risk to society,” Gorin said. “Historically, the parole board does not release people convicted of murder, and this case is no different.

    He called the decision a win for Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who has opposed the brothers’ release.

    The brothers were initially sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez, but after qualifying for resentencing they gained a chance at freedom.

    Many family members have supported their cause, but the gruesome crime and the brothers’ conduct behind bars led to pushback against their release.

    The killings occurred after the brothers purchased shotguns in San Diego with a false identification and shot their parents in the family living room.

    The bloody crime scene was compared by investigators to a gangland execution, where Jose Menendez was shot five times, including once in the back of the head. Evidence showed their mother had crawled, wounded, on the floor before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.

    The brothers reported the killings to 911, according to court records. Soon afterward, prosecutors during the trial noted, the two siblings began to spend large sums of money, including buying a Porsche and a restaurant, which was purchased by Lyle. Erik bought a Jeep and hired a private tennis instructor.

    Prosecutors argued it was access to their multimillion-dollar inheritance that prompted the killing after Jose Menendez shared that he planned to disinherit the brothers.

    But during the trials, the Menendez brothers and relatives testified that the two siblings had undergone years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their father.

    In contrast to their frenzy around their trial, Thursday and Friday’s parole hearings were quiet — yet occasionally contentious — affairs.

    A Times journalist was the only member of the public allowed to view the hearing on a projector screen in a room inside the agency’s headquarters outside of Sacramento.

    During the Friday hearing, the parole board quickly dived into the allegations that the brothers were sexually assaulted by their father, which Lyle Menendez said confused and “caused a lot of shame in me.”

    “That pretty much characterized my relationship with my father,” he said, adding that the fear of being abused left him in a state of “hyper vigilance,” even after the abuse stopped and his father began to abuse Erik.

    “It took me a while to realize that it stopped,” Menendez said. “I think I was still worried about it for a long time.”

    Growing up, he said, taking care of his younger brother gave him purpose, and helped to protect him from “drowning in the spiral of my own life.”

    Menendez alleged his mother also sexually abused him, but said he did not share it during his comprehensive risk assessment because he “didn’t see it as abuse really.”

    “Today, I see it as sexual abuse,” he said. “When I was 13, I felt like I was consenting and my mother was dealing with a lot and I just felt like maybe it wasn’t.”

    Board members also questioned Lyle Menendez on why he didn’t mention the possibility they were removed from their parents’ will in their submissions to the board, but Menendez contended their inheritance was not a motive in the killings.

    Instead, he said, it became “a problem afterward” as they worried they would have no money after their parents’ deaths.

    “I believe there was a will that disinherited us somewhere,” he said.

    The result of Thursday’s hearing means Erik can’t seek parole again for three years, a decision that left some relatives and supporters of the younger brother stunned.

    “How is my dad a threat to society,” Talia Menendez, his stepdaughter, wrote on Instagram shortly after the decision was made. “This has been torture to our family. How much longer???”

    In a statement issued Thursday, relatives said they were disappointed by the decision and noted that going through Lyle’s hearing Friday would be “undoubtedly difficult,” although they remained “cautiously optimistic and hopeful.”

    Friends, relatives and former cellmates have touted the brothers’ lives behind bars, pointing to programs they’ve spearheaded for inmates, including classes for anger management, meditation, and helping inmates in hospice care.

    But members of the board questioned both siblings about their violation of rules, zeroing in at times about repeated use of contraband cellphones.

    During the hearing Friday, Lyle said he sometimes used cellphones to keep in touch with family outside the prison. But Deputy Parole Commissioner Patrick Reardon questioned this explanation, and asked why Menendez needed a cellphone if he could make legitimate calls from a prison-issued tablet.

    The rule violation, board members pointed out, had resulted in Menendez being barred from family visits for three years.

    Reardon pointed out that Menendez pleaded guilty to two cellphone violations in November 2024 and in March 2025. Menendez was also linked to three other violations, although another cellmate of his took responsibility for those violations.

    Menendez said the violations occurred when he lived in a dorm with five other inmates, and admitted the use of cellphones was a “gang-like activity.” The group, he said, probably went through at least five cellphones.

    Heidi Rummel, Menendez’s parole attorney, argued in her closing that despite the cellphone issues, Menendez had no violent incidents on his prison record.

    “This board is going to say you’re dangerous because you used your cellphones,” she said. “But there is zero evidence that he used it for criminality, that he used it for violence. He didn’t even lie about it.”

    But members of the board repeatedly focused on what seemed to be issues of credibility. Reardon said at times it felt like Menendez was “two different incarcerated people.”

    “You seem to be different things at different times,” Reardon said during the hearing. “I don’t think what I see is that you used a cellphone from time to time. There seems to be a mechanism in place that you always had a cellphone.”

    Garland asked Menendez about whether he used his position on the Men’s Advisory Council — a group meant to be a liaison on issues between inmates and prison administrators — to manipulate others and gain unfair benefits.

    Menendez said the position gave him access to wall phones, and used the position to help him barter or gain favors.

    Garland also pointed to an assessment that found Menendez exhibited antisocial traits, entitlement, deception, manipulation and a resistance to accept consequences.

    Menendez said he had discussed those issues, but that he didn’t agree he showed narcissistic traits.

    “They’re not the type of people like me self-referring to mental health,” he said, adding that he felt his father displayed narcissistic tendencies and lack of self-reflection. “I just felt like that wasn’t me.”

    Menendez pointed to his work to help inmates in prison who are bullied or mocked.

    “I would never call myself a model incarcerated person,” he said. “I would say that I’m a good person, that I spent my time helping people. That I’m very open and accepting.”

    The parole board applauded Menendez’s work and educational history while in prison, noting he was working on a master’s degree.

    Despite the violations, Menendez argued he felt he had done good work in prison.

    “My life has been defined by extreme violence,” he said, tears visible on his face. “I wanted to be defined by something else.”

    James Queally, Salvador Hernandez, Richard Winton

    Source link

  • Erik Menendez to remain in prison after decision by California Parole Board

    SACRAMENTO — Erik Menendez will not be released, the California Parole Board decided in a highly anticipated and lengthy hearing Thursday, curtailing for now the contentious push by he and his older sibling to be freed after the 1989 killing of their parents in their Beverly Hills home.

    The hearing came after years of legal efforts by Menendez and his brother to be set free despite being convicted of life without the possibility of parole in 1995. Their jury trial, and accounts of an abusive upbringing in the upscale Beverly Hills home, inspired several documentaries and television series that drew renewed attention to their case and allegations of sexual abuse against their father.

    The hearing — the first time Erik Menendez, 54, has faced the Parole Board — offered a never-before-seen glimpse into his life behind bars over more than three decades. A separate hearing for Lyle, 57, is set for Friday.

    The hearing, Erik Menendez noted, was 36 years and a day after his family realized his parents were dead. The killing occurred on Aug. 20, 1989.

    “Today is the day all of my victims learned my parents were dead,” he said. “So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey.”

    After a nearly 10-hour hearing, the board decided to deny parole to Menendez for three years. He could petition for an earlier hearing.

    “This is a tragic case,” Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said after issuing the decision. “I agree that not only two but four people were lost in this family.”

    Relatives, friends and advocates have described the Menendez brothers as “model inmates,” but during the hearing Thursday members of the Parole Board raised concerns about drug and alcohol use, fights with other inmates, instances in which Erik Menendez was found with a contraband cellphone, and allegations that he helped a prison gang in a tax fraud scam in 2013.

    More than a dozen relatives testified in favor of release for Menendez, with many of them saying they had forgiven him and his brother for the killing. Although amazed by the family’s support, Barton said Menendez should not be released on parole.

    “Two things can be true,” Barton said. “They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole.”

    In a statement, a spokesperson for relatives of the two siblings said they were disappointed.

    “Our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know he will take the Board’s recommendation in stride,” the family said in a statement. “His remorse, growth, and the positive impact he’s had on others speak for themselves. We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon.”

    They said they remained “cautiously optimistic” for Lyle Menendez, whose hearing was set for Friday.

    Erik Menendez testified he obtained cellphones despite risking discipline because he didn’t believe there was a chance of him ever being released. He took the gamble, he said, because the “connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone.”

    He associated with a gang, he said, for protection.

    That all changed in 2024, he said, when he realized there was a chance of parole at some point.

    “In November of 2024, now the consequences mattered,” he told the board. “Now the consequences meant I was destroying my life.”

    The crime that put Menendez and his brother in prison began when the siblings drove to San Diego, bought shotguns with cash using someone else’s identification, then returned home and opened fire in the family living room while their parents were watching television.

    Investigators have said the gruesome crime scene looked like the site of a gangland execution. Jose Menendez was shot five times, including once in the back of the head, and evidence showed Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor, wounded, before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.

    The brothers called 911, with Lyle screaming that “someone killed my parents,” according to court records. But while they appeared as grieving orphans, Erik and Lyle also began spending large sums of money in the months after the killings. Lyle bought a Porsche and a restaurant while Erik purchased a Jeep and retained a private tennis instructor with the intentions of turning pro. The two were infamously seen sitting courtside at an NBA game between the murders and their capture.

    Prosecutors argued the brothers killed their parents out of greed to get access to their multimillion-dollar inheritance. Jose was planning to disinherit the brothers because he considered them failures, according to court filings. The brutality of the crimes and the juxtaposition of such violence against the family’s Beverly Hills image turned the case into an international media circus, only rivaled at the time by the O.J. Simpson trial.

    Although mobs of reporters also circled the brothers’ resentencing hearings in Van Nuys this year, Thursday’s parole hearing was a much more solemn and quiet affair. With the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation tightly controlling media access, a Times journalist was the only member of the public allowed to view the hearing on a projector screen in a room inside the agency’s headquarters just outside Sacramento.

    The parole hearing is not meant to relitigate details of the case or the brothers’ roles in the killings, but members of the board questioned Erik Menendez on Thursday on details of the grisly murders, which the brothers and supporters in their family said were committed because they had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their father.

    “In my mind, leaving meant death,” Menendez told the board when asked why he didn’t leave the house or go to the police. “My absolute belief that I could not get away. Maybe it sounds completely irrational and unreasonable today.”

    Menendez said he and his brother purchased the shotguns because they believed that their parents might try to kill them, or that his father would go to his room to rape him.

    “That was going to happen,” he said. “One way or another. If he was alive, that was going to happen.”

    Asked why the two killed their mother as well, Menendez said that the decision was made after learning she was aware of the abuse, and that the siblings saw no daylight between the two.

    “Step by step, my mom had shown she was united with my dad,” he said at the hearing. “On that night I saw them as one person. Had she not been in the room, maybe it would have been different.”

    He said the moment he found out his mother was aware of the alleged abuse was “devastating.”

    “When mom told me … that she had known all of those years. It was the most devastating moment in my entire life,” he said. “It changed everything for me. I had been protecting her by not telling her.”

    Asked whether he believed his mother was also a victim of his father’s abuse, Menendez said, “Definitely.”

    “He was beating her because I failed,” he said.

    After denying parole, Barton pointed to their decision to kill their mother, calling it “devoid of human compassion.”

    “The killing of your mother especially showed a lack of empathy and reason,” Barton said. “I can’t put myself in your place. I don’t know that I’ve ever had rage to that level, ever. But that is still concerning, especially since it seems she was also a victim herself of domestic violence.”

    Menendez was visibly overcome with emotion when discussing details of the murders, although he did not appear to cry.

    After the murders, Menendez said, the spending sprees between he and his brother, including buying a Rolex, were an “incredibly callous act.”

    “I was torn between hatred of myself over what I did and wishing that I could undo it and trying to live out my life, making teenager decisions,” he said.

    Menendez eventually confessed to the killings in discussions with a therapist, and L.A. County sheriff’s deputies found a letter in Lyle Menendez’s jail cell admitting to the murders. After jurors hung in their first trial, Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996.

    L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Habib Balian opposed parole for Erik Menendez during the hearing, arguing he lied to the Parole Board and had minimized his role in the killings during the hearing.

    “When one continues to diminish their responsibility for a crime and continues to make the same false excuses that they’ve made for 30-plus years, one is still that same dangerous person that they were when they shotgunned their parents,” Balian said. “Is he truly reformed, or is he just saying what wants to be heard?”

    Menendez, Balian argued to the board, was still a risk to society and should not be released.

    Interest in the brothers’ case was revived in recent years following a popular Netflix series, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” The show aired after a Peacock docuseries, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” uncovered additional evidence of Jose Menendez’s alleged sexual abuse of his children and others, including Roy Rosselló, a member of the boy band Menudo.

    The new evidence was part of the brothers’ most recent legal appeal in the case. More than 20 of the brothers’ relatives formed a coalition pushing for their freedom, arguing they had spent enough time imprisoned for a pair of killings that were motivated by years of horrific abuse.

    Last year, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón petitioned a judge to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez to 50 years to life in prison, making them eligible for parole. After he defeated Gascón in the November election, new Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman quickly moved to oppose the resentencing petition, going as far as to transfer the prosecutors who authored it and asking a judge to disregard Gascón’s filing.

    L.A. County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic denied that request. After finding prosecutors failed to prove the brothers were a danger to the public, Jesic granted the resentencing petition in May, clearing the path for Thursday’s parole hearing.

    Fellow inmates and rehabilitation officials have described the two as “mentors,” spearheading programs and projects for inmates.

    The two have created programs to deal with anger management, meditation and assisting inmates in hospice care and to improve conditions inside prison.

    Lyle Menendez spearheaded a Rehabilitation Through Beautification project at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility to work on upgrades and create green space in the prison, along with painting a 1,000-foot mural. Erik Menendez has worked with other inmates to do the artwork for the project.

    But members of the board questioned Erik Menendez on various incidents, including a fight in 1997.

    Menendez said another inmate hit him first, but admitted that he “acted aggressively” as well. In another fight, Menendez said, he “fought back” in self-defense.

    Members of the board also questioned Menendez on multiple incidents in which he was found with contraband, including art supplies, candles, spray cans, and cellphones that Menendez said he would pay about $1,000 to obtain.

    He used some of the art supplies to decorate his cell, he said.

    Menendez said he also gave other inmates access to the phone, because “if it was someone that I trusted or someone that I knew had a phone, I didn’t want to tell him no.”

    He said he used the phones to speak with his wife, watch YouTube videos and pornography.

    “I really became addicted to the phones,” he said.

    During the hearing, Barton said he was concerned about the number of support letters that refer to Menendez as a model inmate, saying it could minimize the impact of cellphones in the prison.

    Menendez said it wasn’t until later that he realized the larger impact that cellphones could have, despite how prevalent they could be in prison.

    “I knew of 50, 60 people that had phones,” he said. “I just justified it by saying if I don’t buy it someone else is going to buy it. The phones were going to be sold, and I longed for that connection.”

    But in January, he said, he had an in-depth talk with a lieutenant and took a criminal thinking class that made him reassess.

    “The damage of using a phone is as corrosive to a prison environment as drugs are,” he said. “In the sense that someone must bring them in, they must be paid for, it corrupts staff … phones can be used to elicit more criminal activity.”

    Members of the board spent a significant amount of time questioning Menendez on the use of contraband phones, and pointed to them as part of their reasoning in denying parole.

    “Your institutional misconduct showed a lack of self-awareness,” Barton said. “You’ve got a great support network. But you didn’t go to them before you committed these murders. And you didn’t go to them, before you used the cellphone.”

    Dmitry Gorin, a former prosecutor, said Menendez’s decision to break the rules while in prison affected his chances at winning release, even though he was young when he was convicted.

    “If you’re not going to comply with the rules in prison, you’re not going to comply out in society — that’s what they’re saying here,” Gorin said. “The big picture here is without serious medical issues or being elderly, I don’t know anyone who killed two people who has been paroled.”

    Nancy Tetreault, an attorney for former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, said that despite public support for parole, Menendez was considered moderate risk in the comprehensive risk assessment. To have a better chance at release, he would have to be considered low risk, she said.

    “That’s very hard to overcome,” she said.

    The two brothers were involved in classes, but also would need to be more involved in rehabilitative programs for a favorable decision, Tetreault said.

    “Yes, they have a lot of classes and things like that that I was reading the classes they’ve put together, like meditation, for insight, that they’re leaving it, but they need to, they need to start programming,” she said.

    Menendez admitted to drinking alcohol and briefly using heroin at one point in prison, which he said he tried because he was “miserable” and feeling hopeless.

    “If I could numb my sadness with alcohol, I was going to do it,” he said. “I was looking to ease that sadness within me.”

    Members of the board also asked Menendez about his connection to a prison gang and a tax fraud scam in 2013, but did not discuss details of the scheme.

    Menendez said part of the reason he associated with members of the gang, known as 25s or Dos Cinco, was fear of his safety.

    “When the 25ers came and asked for help, I thought this was a great opportunity to align myself with them and to survive,” Menendez said, adding that he thought he needed to keep himself safe because he had no hopes of being paroled at the time. “I was in tremendous fear.”

    The gang was in charge of the prison yard, he said, and a member approached him about the scheme, although Menendez said he did not personally control the checks. The gang also supplied him with marijuana, he said.

    Much changed after 2013, Menendez said, and he curbed his use of drugs and alcohol. At one point, members of the gang also believed he had become an informant.

    “I did not like who I was in 2013,” Menendez said. “From 2013 on, I was living for a different purpose. My purpose in life was to be a good person.”

    In Oct. 14, 2023, his mother’s birthday, he committed to stop using drugs, he told the board.

    Deputy Parole Commissioner Rachel Stern asked Menendez about his work with hospice inmates, including a World War II veteran convicted of an unspecified sexual violence crime that Menendez helped with getting his meals and bedding.

    Menendez said he saw his work with the inmate as a way to make amends for his father.

    Menendez apologized to his family during the hearing, noting their support.

    “I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I have put them through,” he said. “I know they have been here for me and they’re here for me today, but I want them to know that this should be about them. It’s about them and if I ever get the chance at freedom I want the healing to be about them.”

    James Queally, Salvador Hernandez, Richard Winton

    Source link

  • Why the AirPods Pro’s new hearing aid features are a bigger deal than you think

    Why the AirPods Pro’s new hearing aid features are a bigger deal than you think

    Apple’s high-end earbuds will be able to be used a full-on hearing aids. (Apple)

    Could Apple really be teeing up a change that could save my elderly mother more than $1,500? That’s the promise of the company’s newly announced initiative to add true hearing aid functionality to the AirPods Pro — and why, with all due respect to the iPhone 16 and its fancy Camera Control button, it was the most promising section of Monday’s keynote, to my eyes.

    The news couldn’t have come at a better time for me. My 80-year-old mother has finally admitted that her hearing is, shall we say, subpar. And she just asked me to book her an appointment at the Miracle Ear clinic down the street (“They’re having a fall sale!”). But before I went down that road, I decided to do some research.

    I knew that there was a burgeoning market for hearing aids since the US government opened the field to over-the-counter competition in 2022. But a bit of googling confirmed that those models — even those with familiar names, like Jabra, Sony and Sennheiser — start at $300 and go north from there, sometimes topping $2,000. And while that’s certainly a lot, the crazy thing is that it’s downright cheap compared to clinical hearing aids. Those often start at $1,000, and can go as high as $5,000 or more. Yes, really.

    Some medical insurance may defer costs, but Medicare doesn’t. While retired military personnel can get hearing aids through the VA, I remember my father’s journey down that path meant that his hearing aids arrived many months after the initial hearing exam.

    Jabra Enhance's OTC hearing aid options top out at almost $2,000.Jabra Enhance's OTC hearing aid options top out at almost $2,000.

    Jabra Enhance’s OTC hearing aid options top out at almost $2,000. (Jabra Enhance)

    And here’s the clincher: Many elderly folks seem to loathe their hearing aids, and for good reason: They’re generally tedious and unintuitive to use, sometimes with a single microscopic button to control volume. Want to turn them off? Pop open the battery cover, for starters. (And many hearing aids still use disposable microbatteries.) Case in point: My mother got one of these expensive pair of hearing aids years ago, but found the challenge of wearing and maintaining them wasn’t worth the so-so audio improvement they offered. They still power on, but they don’t seem to work effectively any more — and being out of warranty, the cause of our current hearing aid search.

    The competition from the OTC market has helped in that regard, as the Jabras and Sennheisers of the world push the traditional hearing aid providers to become a bit more tech-savvy. Some eschew the behind-the-ear battery pack and go for earbud-style simplicity. Bluetooth connectivity for calls and apps for sound adjustments are finally more common, as older people become accustomed to using their phones and tablets.

    But why go for what’s essentially an AirPods knockoff when you can get the real thing at a fraction of the price? (And — amazingly, in an age where everything has gone the subscription route — free of any sort of recurring monthly fees.)

    Waiting for the software update — and managing expectations

    So, when will the hearing aid features become available? What seemed to be weeks away may now be much closer. FDA regulatory signoff (in the US) is already a done deal, arriving just a few days after the initial announcement. That leaves the requisite software upgrade. You’ll need an AirPods Pro paired with a compatible device running iOS 18, or the equivalent 2024 OS updates for iPad or Mac. On the iPhone side, that’s pretty much every model sold after the 2018 model year (iPhone XS/XR and later). While those initial software updates hit on September 16, it’s unclear if the hearing aid functionality will arrive then, or sometime later — perhaps alongside the first Apple Intelligence coming in October. (Apple’s site simply says “coming this fall.”)

    In the meantime, I’ve started the upsell to my mother. I showed her the relevant portion of Apple’s video presentation, and I had her try out my AirPods Pro, just to gauge fit and comfort. The initial response wasn’t enthusiastic. While she liked that they “didn’t fall out of my ears” like the AirPods 2, she’s put off by the penetration of the eartips into her ear canal. Countless other headphone fans agree, and that’s why the design of the new AirPods 4 is more open. But Apple hasn’t suggested the hearing aid functionality is coming to those headphones anytime soon — if ever.

    Unlike traditional hearing aids, AirPods Pro are anything but discreet. (This shot is from Apple's keynote video.)Unlike traditional hearing aids, AirPods Pro are anything but discreet. (This shot is from Apple's keynote video.)

    Unlike traditional hearing aids, AirPods Pro are anything but discreet. (This shot is from Apple’s keynote video.) (Apple)

    And let’s be honest: This isn’t envisioned as a miracle cure. Apple specifically says this feature is “intended for people with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.” I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother has graduated to the need for pro-level hearing assistance at this point, over-the-counter or otherwise. So we may end up opting for one of those Jabra Enhance models, which offer a 100-day no-hassle return policy.

    But now we have the AirPods Pro as a testable alternative. Going forward, anyone in the market for hearing aids can start their journey with the AirPods Pro and its companion free audio test. If you like the results, you’re done — or you at least have a stopgap solution. And if not, you can compare and contrast them against pricier OTC or clinical options in terms of comfort, battery life, ease of use and — of course — the respective efficacy of their actual hearing assistance. The very fact that Apple is in the hearing aid conversation with a $200-ish option feels like a win.

    John Falcone

    Source link

  • City of Marysville, hotel owner at odds over building’s future after fire destroys it

    City of Marysville, hotel owner at odds over building’s future after fire destroys it

    A hearing on Friday could determine the future of Hotel Marysville, which became unstable after it caught fire months ago. The question of the day: Does the building’s current condition warrant demolition?Previous coverage in the video player aboveThe June 15 fire resulted in city officials cordoning off the surrounding area and partially closing Highway 70, forcing a detour around town. The partial closure is also a concern for nearby businesses. City officials explaining traffic delays can reach up to 45 minutes to get through the city due to street closures around the burned hotel.The city wants to demolish the building and believes it is unsalvageable. The attorney for the hotel’s owner, Feather River Plaza LLC, is advocating for the buildings potential revival. At the hearing in the Marysville city council chambers, back-and-forth went on as the city presented multiple items of evidence regarding the hotel’s condition.Engineering reports show the building is at threat of collapsing and has asbestos. An engineer at the hearing reaffirmed the building’s risk of failure, saying that it could collapse from wind, rain or even under normal weather conditions.The city said there was standing water, rats and bugs inside the hotel before the fire.Also present is the Marysville Police Department, which also described the conditions of the hotel prior to the fire as missing windows, doors, stairs, walls and floors. Police also confirming the presence of unhoused people using the building as shelter. There is also a tree growing through a room in the hotel. Rats, trash and graffiti were also observed by officers.Police have described the building as an imminent threat to the public and other buildings.The city said it has served six notices to the owner to improve the building’s conditions, the last notice being sent Aug. 4. They said Feather River has ignored those notices and did not take any action.Representation for Feather River meanwhile argues that the items presented by the city are of a building that no longer exists due to the fire, making the city’s argument no longer accurate.Instead of demolishing the building, the owner wants to either revive the building or sell it to someone who wants to revive it. Addressing asbestos concerns from a consultant who spoke at the hearing, Feather River’s attorney argued asbestos abatement can happen without demolition.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter

    MARYSVILLE, Calif. —

    A hearing on Friday could determine the future of Hotel Marysville, which became unstable after it caught fire months ago. The question of the day: Does the building’s current condition warrant demolition?

    Previous coverage in the video player above

    The June 15 fire resulted in city officials cordoning off the surrounding area and partially closing Highway 70, forcing a detour around town. The partial closure is also a concern for nearby businesses. City officials explaining traffic delays can reach up to 45 minutes to get through the city due to street closures around the burned hotel.

    The city wants to demolish the building and believes it is unsalvageable. The attorney for the hotel’s owner, Feather River Plaza LLC, is advocating for the buildings potential revival.

    At the hearing in the Marysville city council chambers, back-and-forth went on as the city presented multiple items of evidence regarding the hotel’s condition.

    Engineering reports show the building is at threat of collapsing and has asbestos. An engineer at the hearing reaffirmed the building’s risk of failure, saying that it could collapse from wind, rain or even under normal weather conditions.

    The city said there was standing water, rats and bugs inside the hotel before the fire.

    Also present is the Marysville Police Department, which also described the conditions of the hotel prior to the fire as missing windows, doors, stairs, walls and floors. Police also confirming the presence of unhoused people using the building as shelter. There is also a tree growing through a room in the hotel. Rats, trash and graffiti were also observed by officers.

    Police have described the building as an imminent threat to the public and other buildings.

    The city said it has served six notices to the owner to improve the building’s conditions, the last notice being sent Aug. 4. They said Feather River has ignored those notices and did not take any action.

    Representation for Feather River meanwhile argues that the items presented by the city are of a building that no longer exists due to the fire, making the city’s argument no longer accurate.

    Instead of demolishing the building, the owner wants to either revive the building or sell it to someone who wants to revive it.

    Addressing asbestos concerns from a consultant who spoke at the hearing, Feather River’s attorney argued asbestos abatement can happen without demolition.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter

    Source link

  • Teen charged in shooting of 49ers’ Ricky Pearsall is ‘very sorry,’ attorney says

    Teen charged in shooting of 49ers’ Ricky Pearsall is ‘very sorry,’ attorney says

    SAN FRANCISCO — 

    The 17-year-old accused of shooting San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall during a botched armed robbery attempt last weekend was arraigned in juvenile court Wednesday, a day after he was charged with multiple felonies, including attempted murder.

    Judge Roger C. Chan read the charges against the teenager, who because he is a minor was referred to only by his initials. The allegations include personal use and intentional discharge of a firearm, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and attempted second-degree robbery,

    The young man, whom police have said lives in Tracy, about 70 miles east of San Francisco, sat facing forward through the short proceeding, next to his court-appointed public defender, Bob Dunlap. His parents sat in the front row of benches reserved for the public, a few feet from their son. His mother required a Spanish-speaking translator.

    Assistant Dist. Atty. David Mitchell said members of Pearsall’s family also attended the hearing, though he did not specify which relatives or whether they joined online or attended in person.

    Neither the suspect nor his family made any public comments. While taking questions from the media after the hearing, Dunlap said the teenager — whom he described as a high school senior — and his parents were “very sorry” about the shooting.

    “This is very, very hard on them,” Dunlap said. “They assured me, and from what little I know, that this is completely out of character for him.”

    Pearsall, 23, was walking back to his car alone after shopping in one of the luxury stores in San Francisco’s Union Square district on Saturday afternoon when, according to police, a gunman confronted Pearsall and tried to rob him, targeting his Rolex watch. A struggle ensued, and the attacker’s gun fired multiple times, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said during a Saturday evening news conference. Both Pearsall and the assailant were shot.

    A bullet struck Pearsall in the chest and exited through his back, missing his vital organs, according to a social media post by his mother. He was treated at San Francisco General Hospital and released Sunday.

    The suspect was shot in his left arm and treated at the same hospital, according to police. Dunlap said his client is bandaged but recovering well.

    Dunlap said it was too early to address questions about why the teenager was in San Francisco, or his motives. Dunlap said he has read a police report on the incident, but has not yet been able to review video of the shooting that investigators are gathering from area surveillance cameras, which he believed would shed more light on what happened.

    He added that there were “extenuating circumstances” that he believed could factor into the case, but provided no details. He also said he wasn’t convinced the attempted murder charge would “hold water at the end of the day.”

    A probation official revealed during the hearing that the suspect has a pending juvenile court matter in San Joaquin County. Officials provided no details on that case, though Dunlap said his client would probably be transferred back to San Joaquin County after the San Francisco proceedings conclude.

    San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins has not yet said whether she would seek to try the teenager in adult court. That would require a ruling by a judge that “essentially means that the juvenile system would not be equipped to rehabilitate that minor,” Jenkins said.

    Dunlap said it would be inappropriate for the case to be transferred out of juvenile court.

    “I think that my client certainly should be treated as a juvenile. He is a juvenile,” Dunlap said.

    Pearsall, who played for Arizona State and the University of Florida, was drafted by the 49ers in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft. He was sidelined with a shoulder injury during much of the NFL preseason.

    The 49ers have put Pearsall on the non-football injury list, meaning he will miss at least the first four regular-season games. Team officials have said they expect him to make a full recovery.

    Hannah Wiley

    Source link

  • Woman accused of murder after crash that killed Vacaville officer appears in court

    Woman accused of murder after crash that killed Vacaville officer appears in court

    The 24-year-old woman accused of murder after a crash that killed a Vacaville police officer last week appeared in a Solano County courtroom briefly on Monday.Officer Matthew Bowen, 32, was killed while making a traffic stop with his motorcycle on Thursday near the intersection of Leisure Town Road and Orange Drive, police said. According to the California Highway Patrol, Serena Rodriguez was believed to be driving under the influence of drugs. She was booked into jail on charges of homicide and driving under the influence, causing injury or death. A felony complaint that the Solano County District Attorney’s Office filed in court accuses Rodriguez of murder and says she “knew and reasonably should have known” that Bowen was a peace officer engaged in the performance of his duties. Dozens of Vacaville police officers attended Monday’s hearing to show support for Bowen and his family. Rodriguez appeared agitated in court as the judge tried to verify her name. She addressed his questions curtly and cut him off at times. She was appointed an attorney from the public defender’s office and is being held on no bail. The arraignment was continued to next Monday, July 22 at 1:30 p.m.”I want to extend our condolences to Officer Matthew Bowen’s wife, his two young children, his parents Mark and Becky who are here, his extended family, his law enforcement family at the Vacaville police department,” Solano County District Attorney Krishna A. Abrams said outside court. KCRA 3 has learned that Rodriguez has a criminal history that includes charges being filed against her in Placer and Sacramento counties over the last few years. In Placer County, she was found guilty of speeding in 2021 and pleaded no contest to vandalism or manufacturing a weapon in jail in 2023. Charges for drugs, petty theft and breaking or removing vehicle parts were dismissed. In Sacramento County, court documents show she pleaded no contest to falsely identifying herself. A charge for drug paraphernalia was dismissed. Those charges date back to March 2023.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app.

    The 24-year-old woman accused of murder after a crash that killed a Vacaville police officer last week appeared in a Solano County courtroom briefly on Monday.

    Officer Matthew Bowen, 32, was killed while making a traffic stop with his motorcycle on Thursday near the intersection of Leisure Town Road and Orange Drive, police said.

    According to the California Highway Patrol, Serena Rodriguez was believed to be driving under the influence of drugs. She was booked into jail on charges of homicide and driving under the influence, causing injury or death.

    A felony complaint that the Solano County District Attorney’s Office filed in court accuses Rodriguez of murder and says she “knew and reasonably should have known” that Bowen was a peace officer engaged in the performance of his duties.

    Dozens of Vacaville police officers attended Monday’s hearing to show support for Bowen and his family.

    This content is imported from Twitter.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    Rodriguez appeared agitated in court as the judge tried to verify her name. She addressed his questions curtly and cut him off at times. She was appointed an attorney from the public defender’s office and is being held on no bail.

    The arraignment was continued to next Monday, July 22 at 1:30 p.m.

    “I want to extend our condolences to Officer Matthew Bowen’s wife, his two young children, his parents Mark and Becky who are here, his extended family, his law enforcement family at the Vacaville police department,” Solano County District Attorney Krishna A. Abrams said outside court.

    KCRA 3 has learned that Rodriguez has a criminal history that includes charges being filed against her in Placer and Sacramento counties over the last few years.

    In Placer County, she was found guilty of speeding in 2021 and pleaded no contest to vandalism or manufacturing a weapon in jail in 2023.

    Charges for drugs, petty theft and breaking or removing vehicle parts were dismissed.

    In Sacramento County, court documents show she pleaded no contest to falsely identifying herself. A charge for drug paraphernalia was dismissed. Those charges date back to March 2023.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app.

    Source link

  • Gov. Newsom seeks faster review of insurance rate hikes. What to know

    Gov. Newsom seeks faster review of insurance rate hikes. What to know

    With insurers continuing to pull back from the California’s homeowners’ market, Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to speed up the process by which the companies have their requests for rate hikes reviewed.

    The governor said Friday that he is backing a bill that would require the Department of Insurance to complete reviews of proposed premium increases within 60 days to halt any more exits from the market. Here’s what to know:

    What exactly did the governor say?

    Newsom said that immediate steps need to be taken to stabilize the market, which has seen insurers not renew existing policyholders, stop writing new policies or pull out of the market entirely — sending many homeowners to the insurer of last resort, the state’s FAIR Plan, which is now on the hook for more than $300 billion in payouts. Newsom said he was “deeply mindful” of the burdens placed on the plan.

    The governor said he had considered issuing an executive order, but instead is proposing a bill that would require the Insurance Department to speed up its review process of premium rate-hike requests.

    “We need to stabilize this market. We need to send the right signals. We need to move,” he said.

    Isn’t there already an insurance reform package being hashed out in Sacramento?

    Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is holding hearings on his Sustainable Insurance Strategy, a set of comprehensive regulations intended to stabilize rates and make it more attractive for insurers to write homeowners policies, especially in wildfire areas such as hillsides and canyons.

    However, these regulations won’t become law until the end of the year — a deadline sought by the governor, assuming it can be met.

    “It should not take this long for emergency regulations,” Newsom said. “We can’t wait until December.”

    How would this bill fit into the larger set of reforms?

    Lara has reached a grand bargain with the insurance industry to make the market more attractive, though details are still being worked out.

    The plan would allow insurers to include the cost of reinsurance they buy to protect themselves from large fires and other catastrophes into premium costs. It also would allow them to set rates using sophisticated algorithms to predict the risk and cost of future fires, rather than just base them on past events. It’s unclear how an insurer’s application for an expedited rate approval this year would fit into the proposed reforms.

    Has Lara reacted to the governor’s proposal?

    The commissioner tweeted Friday that his department has taken “significant steps forward” to implement his planned reforms but more needs to be done — and that his department is working with the governor and the Legislature “on critical budget language that keeps us on track to get the job done.”

    What do consumer groups have to say?

    Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, said he didn’t understand the proposal, worrying that it would be a “rubber stamp” on proposed rate increases.

    He noted that Proposition 103, the landmark 1988 initiative that gives the insurance commissioner authority to review rate hikes, already mandates that they are conducted within 60 days except in certain circumstances. Those circumstances include requests for rate increases exceeding 7% for homeowners insurance, which allow consumers to seek a hearing, or the commissioner’s own decision to conduct a hearing.

    What is the insurance industry’s reaction

    Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, a trade group of property and casualty insurers, said despite the promise of 60-day rate reviews under Proposition 103, they are taking longer. He said the Insurance Department will often request that insurers waive their rights to a speedy decision or face an administrative hearing, which can lead to extensive delays. However, Frazier withheld comment on the governor’s proposal until the draft language is released.

    What are the next steps?

    Newsom’s office will release the draft bill, which will be carried by a member of the Legislature and be included in the process for adopting the state budget, which the Legislature must approve by June 15. Newsom made his remarks Friday in outlining plans for a revised $288-billion budget, which calls for a series of cutbacks to close a nearly $45-billion shortfall.

    Laurence Darmiento

    Source link

  • Next-Gen High-Resolution Sound Personalization for All Devices – Introducing ARIA by Altitude

    Next-Gen High-Resolution Sound Personalization for All Devices – Introducing ARIA by Altitude

    ARIA by Altitude: Revolutionizing Sound Personalization with High-Resolution Hearing Refinement Technology for All Devices


    DENVER, March 5, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Altitude Auditory Innovations announces the groundbreaking introduction of ARIA, a new approach in sound personalization leveraging advanced hearing refinement technology. Today’s launch of ARIA’s limited-time Prerelease grants early access to this innovative technology with Altitude’s internal ARIA development software on Mac and Windows as a standalone application or as AUv3, and VST3 plugins.

    Jeffrey Jaskunas, CEO of Altitude Auditory Innovations, speaks about this milestone: “Our hearing experience and age-related changes are as different as we are, which is why we see sound personalization as the next frontier in audio innovation. ARIA’s design will meet the demands of the most discerning audio enthusiasts, propelling personalized audio beyond its current scope.”

    Mr. Jaskunas explained Altitude Auditory Innovations’ strategic direction: “By separating ARIA from hardware dependency, we aim to make hearing solutions more accessible and enable personalized listening across all devices and in diverse listening environments.” This innovative approach departs from the trends set by companies like Denon, Sennheiser, and Focal, which integrate sound personalization through Digital Signal Processing in hearables.

    Call to Action:

    Experience High-Resolution Sound Personalization with ARIA – for free. Ahead of our AXPONA 2024 launch, including Altitude’s HD Hearing Test and ARIA Reference Edition, start your journey towards personalized audio today. Download ARIA and be part of the revolution. Visit https://Altitude.Audio for exclusive early access.

    Quote from a User: 

    “Before ARIA, my hearing was fine, and my music was perfect. But now, without ARIA, it sounds off — as if I’m listening underwater. There’s no going back. If I can’t listen with ARIA, I don’t listen at all.”

    ARIA is Lossless and High-Resolution Sound Personalization software for macOS & Windows, aiming to enhance the listening experience for music enthusiasts by calibrating audio on all listening devices to your unique hearing profile. Compatible with any audio source and device, ARIA functions independently of hardware constraints. ARIA Prerelease features 12 Altitude Auditory Innovations Characteristic Hearing Profiles developed using the company’s Calibrated, HD Hearing Test, mapping hearing with nine times the resolution of leading tests.

    Technical Specifications:

    • Device Compatibility: Apple Silicon devices with an M1 or newer CPU; Intel Core i5 / i7 / i9 / Xeon W (2013 and up), x64 compatible Intel or AMD CPUs.
    • Operating Systems Supported: macOS Catalina 10.15, Big Sur 11, Monterey 12, Ventura 13, Sonoma 14, Windows 10 64-bit, Windows 11.
    • Sample Rates: Supports 44.1 kHz to 768 kHz.
    • Audio Routing: Requires a virtual audio device in streaming implementations.

    Multimedia Links:

    Watch ARIA’s 30-second intro on YouTube to hear its transformative power:

    https://youtu.be/mPHaMn6FvsM

    Upcoming Events and Future Plans: 

    Join us at AXPONA 2024 for the debut of ARIA Reference Edition, driven purely by user HD test results. ARIA Reference Edition will replace ARIA Prerelease, offering a more personalized listening experience.

    About Altitude Auditory Innovations: 

    Founded in 2022, Altitude Auditory Innovations specializes in software-based auditory solutions that adapt audio across all listening devices to match your unique hearing profile. The company is dedicated to barrier-free hearing, offering High-Resolution Sound Personalization software that operates independently of hardware restrictions. This innovation is made possible by Altitude’s HD Hearing Test. It is the only solution that measures full-spectrum hearing profiles. For more information, contact the Altitude team at Contact@Altitude.Audio and review the company website at https://Altitude.Audio.

    ###

    Source: Altitude Auditory Innovations LLC

    Source link

  • Will Georgia prosecutor be removed from election case against Donald Trump? Judge to hear arguments

    Will Georgia prosecutor be removed from election case against Donald Trump? Judge to hear arguments

    Should District Attorney Fani Willis be removed from the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump because of her personal relationship with a special prosecutor? Lawyers were set to battle over the question during a hearing in Atlanta on Thursday.Willis, the DA for Georgia’s Fulton County, hired outside lawyer Nathan Wade to help investigate whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Wade has led the team prosecuting the case since an indictment was returned in August.Willis’ removal would be a stunning development in the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against Trump. An additional delay would likely lessen the chance that a trial would be held before the November election, when he is expected to be the Republican nominee for president. At a separate hearing in New York on Thursday, a judge is expected to confirm whether Trump’s hush-money criminal case will go to trial next month, as scheduled. The Georgia hearing, which will be broadcast live, has the potential to dig into uncomfortable details of Willis and Wade’s relationship. Throughout the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has made a serious effort to minimize drama in his courtroom and to keep lawyers focused on legal arguments.He suggested during a hearing Monday that he would continue that trend, saying that if there’s anything that amounts to “harassment or undue embarrassment,” he is “not going to feel inhibited from stepping in, even without an objection from counsel, to move this along and keep it focused on the issues at hand.”Since the allegations of an inappropriate relationship surfaced last month in a motion filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, the former president has used them to try to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Willis’ case. Other Republicans have cited them in calling for investigations into Willis, a Democrat who’s up for reelection this year.Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide, alleged that Willis and Wade had been involved in an improper romantic relationship that began before Wade was hired. The motion says Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited personally when he paid for vacations for the two of them, creating a conflict of interest. Roman, who has since been joined by Trump and several other co-defendants, is asking McAfee to toss out the indictment and to prevent Willis, Wade and their offices from continuing to be involved in the case.Earlier this month, Willis and Wade filed a response acknowledging a “personal relationship” but said it has not resulted in any direct or indirect financial benefit to the district attorney. In a sworn statement attached to the filing, Wade said the relationship began in 2022, after he was hired as special prosecutor, and that he and Willis shared travel expenses and never lived together.Willis argued she has no financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies removing her or her office from the case. Her filing called the allegations “salacious” and said they were designed to generate headlines.McAfee said during a hearing Monday that Willis could be disqualified “if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one.” He said the issues he wants to explore at the hearing are “whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or nonromantic in nature, when it formed and whether it continues.” Those questions are only relevant, he said, “in combination with the question of the existence and extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of the relationship.”Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has subpoenaed Willis, Wade, seven other employees of the district attorney’s office and others, including Wade’s former business partner, Terrence Bradley. Merchant has said Bradley will testify that Willis and Wade’s relationship began prior to his hiring as special prosecutor.McAfee on Monday declined Willis’ request to quash those subpoenas, but agreed to revisit that after Bradley testifies.

    ATLANTA —

    Should District Attorney Fani Willis be removed from the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump because of her personal relationship with a special prosecutor? Lawyers were set to battle over the question during a hearing in Atlanta on Thursday.

    Willis, the DA for Georgia’s Fulton County, hired outside lawyer Nathan Wade to help investigate whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Wade has led the team prosecuting the case since an indictment was returned in August.

    Willis’ removal would be a stunning development in the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against Trump. An additional delay would likely lessen the chance that a trial would be held before the November election, when he is expected to be the Republican nominee for president. At a separate hearing in New York on Thursday, a judge is expected to confirm whether Trump’s hush-money criminal case will go to trial next month, as scheduled.

    The Georgia hearing, which will be broadcast live, has the potential to dig into uncomfortable details of Willis and Wade’s relationship. Throughout the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has made a serious effort to minimize drama in his courtroom and to keep lawyers focused on legal arguments.

    He suggested during a hearing Monday that he would continue that trend, saying that if there’s anything that amounts to “harassment or undue embarrassment,” he is “not going to feel inhibited from stepping in, even without an objection from counsel, to move this along and keep it focused on the issues at hand.”

    Since the allegations of an inappropriate relationship surfaced last month in a motion filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, the former president has used them to try to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Willis’ case. Other Republicans have cited them in calling for investigations into Willis, a Democrat who’s up for reelection this year.

    Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide, alleged that Willis and Wade had been involved in an improper romantic relationship that began before Wade was hired. The motion says Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited personally when he paid for vacations for the two of them, creating a conflict of interest.

    Roman, who has since been joined by Trump and several other co-defendants, is asking McAfee to toss out the indictment and to prevent Willis, Wade and their offices from continuing to be involved in the case.

    Earlier this month, Willis and Wade filed a response acknowledging a “personal relationship” but said it has not resulted in any direct or indirect financial benefit to the district attorney. In a sworn statement attached to the filing, Wade said the relationship began in 2022, after he was hired as special prosecutor, and that he and Willis shared travel expenses and never lived together.

    Willis argued she has no financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies removing her or her office from the case. Her filing called the allegations “salacious” and said they were designed to generate headlines.

    McAfee said during a hearing Monday that Willis could be disqualified “if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one.”

    He said the issues he wants to explore at the hearing are “whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or nonromantic in nature, when it formed and whether it continues.” Those questions are only relevant, he said, “in combination with the question of the existence and extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of the relationship.”

    Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has subpoenaed Willis, Wade, seven other employees of the district attorney’s office and others, including Wade’s former business partner, Terrence Bradley. Merchant has said Bradley will testify that Willis and Wade’s relationship began prior to his hiring as special prosecutor.

    McAfee on Monday declined Willis’ request to quash those subpoenas, but agreed to revisit that after Bradley testifies.

    Source link

  • A fiery lawyer's longshot bid to put Donald Trump in the hot seat goes cold

    A fiery lawyer's longshot bid to put Donald Trump in the hot seat goes cold

    The named defendant in the federal lawsuit was California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, but there was never a doubt that the target was Donald J. Trump.

    For a time, as the legal maneuvering proceeded through the fall, it appeared that Los Angeles could be treated to another of its celebrated courtroom dramas, this one a constitutional showdown pitting a colorful civil rights attorney against a volcanic former president in the courtroom of a judge known for his fiery judicial flair.

    The case sought an order prohibiting Weber from placing the Republican presidential front-runner on the California ballot, based on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.

    It was also intended to be a trap. If Trump’s legal team took the bait and joined the case, then the former president could be forced to face a grilling under oath on his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

    At least that was the theory of Stephen Yagman, an attorney both admired and reviled in local lore for his history of toppling sacred cows.

    Over a span of two decades, Yagman broke legal ground in cases against the LAPD and the U.S. government, establishing that Los Angeles Police Department officers and their leaders can be held personally liable for civil rights violations and that prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center had a right to due process. Then he suffered an ignominious fall with a 2007 federal conviction for tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud. In his 70s, more than a decade after serving 29 months in prison, Yagman regained his law license and resumed fighting for indigent victims of government abuse.

    U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a no less colorful figure than Yagman, has built a reputation for judicial unorothodoxy bordering on heavy-handedness. He’s held court on Skid Row and summoned mayors and supervisors to answer for their ineffective responses to homelessness. In two cases that were active at the time, Carter was holding L.A. County officials’ feet to the fire to extract a commitment for thousands of mental health beds and rebuffing efforts of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to wiggle out of a lawsuit over veterans housing.

    More to the point of Yagman’s case, Carter had found in a 2022 ruling that stripped Trump legal adviser John Eastman’s attorney-client privilege that the two had “more likely than not” attempted to illegally obstruct Congress, calling it “a coup in search of a legal theory.”

    Would Carter, who drew Yagman’s case because it was related to the earlier one, follow through with that reasoning? Yagman hoped so.

    When Trump’s lawyers took the bait and petitioned Carter to intervene, Yagman virtually frothed with anticipation.

    “This court, right here and now, has a unique opportunity to prevent a truly deranged and dangerous fool, Donald Trump, who perpetrated an assault on American Democracy, from again being president of the United States,” he wrote in a motion, noting that Trump “improvidently (for him) has intervened to make himself a party-defendant to the instant action.”

    He buttressed his ever eccentric legalese with a flight of literary allusion invoking both Socrates and The Rolling Stones.

    “Trump is a vile man. He has no virtue whatsoever,” Yagman wrote, appending a long footnote on the Greek philosopher’s concept of civic virtue.

    “And contrary to what the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger sings … Trump, as today’s embodiment of the devil … deserves no sympathy….”

    But it was to no avail. Not once, but twice in the months that followed, Trump’s lawyers raised legal technicalities to knock down Yagman’s flaming rhetoric.

    The first was based on standing, a slippery legal concept meaning something akin to skin in the game.

    Yagman’s case made the tortuous argument that his client, a Republican voter who planned to vote for Trump, would be disenfranchised if, after the March California primary, Trump was ruled ineligible to be president.

    Carter dismissed the case in November, finding his client did not have standing because “the harm he alleges is too generalized.”

    Yagman had a backup strategy, an amended complaint changing his case to a class action representing all Republican voters and naming Trump himself as a defendant on a novel theory of negligent infliction of emotional distress.

    His clients, he argued, were “direct victims of Trump’s acts in creating and participating in insurrection,” both on Jan. 6 and in the “innumerable viewings of those acts on television, on the radio and in numerous publications….”

    Reconsidering, Carter set a hearing for Jan. 8. But, over the holidays, Trump’s lawyers convinced the judge that a hearing was not necessary. In a Dec. 22 filing, Shawn E. Cowles of the Dhillon Law Group gave eight reasons why the case had no merit, ranging from presidential immunity and 1st Amendment protection to “reasons to doubt the veracity of Plaintiff’s claim that he is a registered Republican voter in Los Angeles County.”

    The argument that carried the day for the former president was based on the statute of limitations. Ignoring Yagman’s contention that the injury was repeated every time Jan. 6 imagery appeared on TV, radio or in print, Carter ruled the case “time-barred” based on California’s two-year statute for negligent infliction of emotional distress.

    Yagman, whose past victories included establishing that lawyers cannot be sanctioned for making disparaging comments about their judges, showed uncharacteristic magnanimity in defeat.

    Carter, he said, is a good judge and decent human being.

    “I’m happy enough with it because it’s him,” he told The Times. “Part of me is really sorry to see it go, I really wanted to depose Trump. But I’m ashamed of that because it would just be me playing games. I wouldn’t get anything out of that except chuckles.”

    Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this story.

    Doug Smith

    Source link

  • Villanueva denies existence of deputy gangs as L.A. County officials seek accountability

    Villanueva denies existence of deputy gangs as L.A. County officials seek accountability

    During four hours of combative testimony in front of the Civilian Oversight Commission on Friday morning, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva attempted to minimize the problem of deputy gangs, refusing to acknowledge their existence and alleging the problem of tattooed subgroups is “actually disappearing” from the department.

    “You’re still trying to pretend that deputy gangs exist and that they operate in the countryside pillaging and plundering,” he told special counsel Bert Deixler. Minutes before, Villanueva testified that if the department got rid of all deputies with controversial tattoos the county would have to fire so many people that it would create a “gargantuan public safety crisis.”

    The former sheriff, currently running for county supervisor, told the commission he never did a systematic investigation into deputy gangs. He said he did not ask employees about the nature of their tattoos, and did not question his top leadership about their involvement in the groups, even though his former chief of staff publicly admitted to once being a member of the Grim Reapers, linked to the now-closed Lennox station.

    For years, Villanueva defied subpoenas to testify under oath. It was only after a county judge scheduled a hearing to decide whether to order him to comply that he reversed course. Though there were no major surprises in Friday’s testimony, commission chair Sean Kennedy said the hearing served an important purpose: showing that even the county’s former top cop can face tough questions.

    “It is essential that an elected sheriff be held accountable when he flouts oversight subpoenas,” Kennedy told The Times on Saturday. Demonstrating that, he said, also “puts the pressure” on the current sheriff to continue moving forward with his plans to rid the department of deputy gangs.

    Sheriff Robert Luna, who took office in 2022, vowed last year to “eradicate all deputy gangs” from the department. But the problem has vexed oversight officials and county leaders for years, and there’s no clear path to eliminating them.

    For five decades, the Sheriff’s Department has been plagued by rogue groups of deputies accused of running roughshod over certain stations and promoting a culture of violence. The groups are commonly known by names such as the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators and the Little Devils, and members typically have matching, sequentially numbered tattoos featuring macabre imagery.

    Last year, Inspector General Max Huntsman ordered nearly three dozen deputies to submit to questioning about deputy gangs and show investigators their tattoos in the hope of compiling a list of potential gang members. But the unions filed suit and a judge temporarily blocked the county watchdog’s inquiries.

    At the same time, the sheriff has been working to put in place a stronger policy banning participation in deputy gangs, though the latest proposal is still being hammered out with the unions. Though Villanueva implemented an anti-gang policy in 2020, critics said it didn’t go far enough.

    The oversight commission, meanwhile, has been trying to investigate deputy gangs for years, despite ongoing problems with reluctant witnesses. The former undersheriff, Tim Murakami, has yet to comply with the commission’s subpoena efforts — but Deixler still raised questions about his affiliations during Friday’s hearing.

    Minutes after the testimony began, Deixler played a 2022 clip of Villanueva likening deputy gangs to unicorns.

    “Everybody knows what a unicorn looks like, but I challenge you, name one,” he said during a televised pre-election debate. “Name a single deputy gang member.”

    Then Deixler put a photo of a unicorn on the screen and asked: “That’s a unicorn, isn’t it, sir?”

    Seconds later, he displayed a picture of the former undersheriff and, referencing the name of an alleged deputy gang linked to the East Los Angeles station, said: “And that’s a Caveman, isn’t it, sir?”

    Villanueva bristled, stiffly telling Deixler, “That’s a former undersheriff.”

    At one point, Deixler asked Villanueva whether he’d been a Caveman himself, which the former sheriff denied.

    Despite the academic setting at Loyola Law School, the special hearing on deputy gangs — the commission’s ninth in the past two years — was marked by spectacle and bluster. Audience members interrupted often with cheers, jeers and obscenities, while the former sheriff repeatedly insulted the commission, the inspector general, the media and the special counsel’s lines of inquiry, which he called “dumb” and “appalling.”

    Deixler forcefully questioned Villanueva — at times shouting questions — about some of the most publicized deputy groups, as well as a newly revealed one first made public last week in The Times. That group, the Industry Indians, came to light when the department began investigating an off-duty fight in the parking lot of a Montclair bowling alley and discovered that some of the deputies involved allegedly had Industry Indians tattoos.

    Once Villanueva admitted knowing about the incident, Deixler questioned whether he’d been aware of it in late 2022 when he compared deputy gangs to unicorns. The former sheriff said he only learned of the investigation as he was leaving office, and that it was an example of “misconduct” at a social event, not evidence of gang behavior.

    Villanueva said he did not ask people what “ink they have on their bodies,” and that during his time in office he “never examined anyone’s tattoo.” Even after then-Chief April Tardy — who is now the undersheriff — testified to the commission that the Banditos met the legal definition of a law enforcement gang, Villanueva said he did not launch an investigation.

    “We elected not to touch this matter only because it became a hot political potato that you guys were eager to jump on,” he said, adding that he thought Tardy’s testimony was false.

    Instead, he said, he spent his time in office focused on rooting out misconduct, which he argued was more important than investigating tattoos or subgroups.

    “It’s no secret there are subgroups within the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “They exist everywhere, and they will always exist.”

    Calling them gangs, he said, is “missing the key element — that is misconduct.”

    For some of the community members who turned out to watch the hearing, the takeaways seemed predictable.

    “He’s still denying deputy gangs exist, and he’s still denying that gang tattoos are a problem in the department,” said Stephanie Luna, whose nephew was killed by deputies in 2018. “He said the same things he’s been saying for years, but all in one shot.”

    But Friday’s hearing may not be the only opportunity to question Villanueva. When the testimony ended, Deixler still had questions left to ask — and the commission signaled interest in calling the former sheriff back in March.

    Keri Blakinger

    Source link